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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   35123 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Thanks for the summary, that was excellent. Did you find anywhere a further breakdown of who responded to the survey? I'm specifically interested in figuring out who the people in the UK are who responded saying they need more social media enforcement, because those people... have an interesting perspective.

That said- it's still worth reading. This is what it looks like when people try to mitigate their biases and take an objective look at the situation. Whatever the authors of a specific section may feel people should feel about themselves, they are not adverse to directly recognizing things like low reputational trust.

I am so glad people can start seeing this again, mitigate your biases should be a war cry or a chant or something, maybe we can get Will Smith to sing about it once he's convinced everyone he likes pretty girls. If people can admit their biases and own up to them, I think they can be worked with. Regardless of their ideology. Like I'll even work with a communist neo nazi if they can admit their biases, because it is psychologically very difficult to, in a discussion with another person you respect, say 'yeah I know it's just bias making me think this way but ehhhh I'm sticking with it'. The bias is still strong it appears, but the more progressives are forced to interact with conservatives the more they will be forced to moderate.

Don't put too much faith on the exact numbers, but do value the magnitude and general direction.

I tell the women I sleep with the same thing (I'm so sorry everyone)

This surprised me a bit since there was a dedicated effort to undercut / subvert X due to Musk. Later data indicates this is more because more right-leaning people joined than left-leaning people left, which isn't surprising, but the failure of the rivals to scale upwards is notable as a long-term influence vector.

This- combined with the failure of the left-social-sphere like Bluesky- makes X an uncontested (but now bipartisan) public forum.

I feel like you are underselling how dedicated that push was though. The fact it isn't higher than 2%, after every progressive I know or follow swore they were leaving for bluesky, is blowing my mind.

This is business-actionable advice. Don't be surprised if some media corporation takes this as evidence that people need to be less happy with free offerings.

You aren't wrong, but the business who decides this will be. God please let them do it. The countries spell it out - live somewhere comfortable and well off? Pay for news, why not, they do good work, they keep us informed, we all live in a society. Live in Greece? Yeah no, there are better uses for your money. I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea if we hadn't destroyed the middle class, but if you make everyone proles they aren't factoring the news into their budgets. And you can't really shift that model to the personality driven model without a significant cut to revenue.

X/Bluesky I feel like you are underselling how dedicated that push was though. The fact it isn't higher than 2%, after every progressive I know or follow swore they were leaving for bluesky, is blowing my mind.

It shouldn't, the leftist media mandated memeplex was always paper thin. They had the news and institutions but they didn't have the base. I saw it first hand in the various shitstorms like Gamergate and the kerfufles around Trump's first election. The viewcounts and updoots alone were lopsided by a factor of 100 and more. Online, where the kids and young adults were the numbers were staggering.

Yeah, true, and it also demonstrates how astro turfed progressivism is online. They were just so adamant, they checked the 'and this time, I mean it!' box and everything.

Thanks for the summary, that was excellent. Did you find anywhere a further breakdown of who responded to the survey? I'm specifically interested in figuring out who the people in the UK are who responded saying they need more social media enforcement, because those people... have an interesting perspective.

There is a fair bit more source diving in the fuller paper, and more of the raw data stuff on the website that was linked in the 'billed as' section. IIRC, the main trend was 'political left consistently favors more content moderation of social media.'

Yeah I found the survey and breakdown by country, but I was hoping there was a breakdown per country.

Edit: never mind, found it - under each country, they just had to get in some paragraphs first, I should have realised.

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